Chicken Tacos

Chicken Tacos

Something crazy happened last night. I made dinner.

Thought I'd share one of our favorite meals. (and it's so easy)

Ingredients:

3 or 4 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast

16 oz. jar of Salsa

1 can of Corn, drained

1 can of Black Beans, drained and rinsed

.

Put it all in a crock pot on high for 4 hours.

.

And this is what it will look like

Mmmm.

.

Serve with:

taco shells or tortillas

sour cream

shredded lettuce

shredded cheese

chopped tomato

...and whatever else you like on your tacos.

.

3 points for 1/2 cup on weight watchers.

Lately...

"Without vision, the people perish"

3.23.11

.

What's going on with us these days?

Nate continues to work as hard as he possibly can at church. He is always busy with youth things and now media too, but things feel like they are on pause. Really, our church has no vision. We are pushing through all the feelings of doubt and choosing to believe that we are here "for such a time as this."

Things are going to have to change drastically very soon. Every week we (us and a lot of the congregation) feel more and more exhausted. I am craving genuine worship and community. How is this church ever going to change? It has to change or it will eventually die.... It's like a contestant on The Biggest Loser. We need some leadership to come in and whip us into shape. Is there a Bob and Jillian out there for churches? Who knows?

I sit in the church office everyday and try to think of things to make it better, but there really is no point right now. Therefore, work is a little stressful/boring right now. I am still on weight watchers and love it, so I will stay on it until these last 18 pounds are gone. It may take forever, but I'm ready for it. I am over half way to my goal of losing 40 lbs.

Other than taking care of my Nate, myself, and my new kitchen not a lot has been going on. All in all, we are happy and healthy and enjoying each other and our house more than ever.

Kitchen Remodel!

This will be the last post about our new kitchen....

because, it's finished!

When we decide on something we go after it and get it done. We started with ordering the tile for the fireplace and back splash. When the fireplace was finished, we did the back splash. When the back splash was finished we started on the counter tops. Now after two full weekends working on it - It is done! We are so happy with how it turned out!

.

.

.

This is how Claire felt the whole time we were working.

What a face.

.

.

Here is a little section BEFORE...

Here is the same little section AFTER!

.

.

.

How do you like the counter tops? Does it look like granite? It's supposed to, but it is really just paint. Ideally, we would have loved to get real granite counter tops, but that will never be in our budget, so I found this great paint online.

We re-did our fireplace and entire kitchen for under $300 and I think it looks pretty great. (Considering it would have cost around $5000 for new counter tops.)

.

.

.

Some working pictures...

All taped off.

.

.

.

Nate painting the "Iron Core Black Primer"

.

.

.

Some Before and Afters...

20 lb. Massage!

So, to reward myself for losing weight, I thought I should do something great every 10lbs.

(a little incentive never hurt anybody)

Hollie and I had a great little purple toes pedicure for losing 10 lbs. I couldn't get Nate to do that with us, but he did want to do what I had planned for losing 20 lbs. In fact... He was counting down the lbs. We went for a massage.

.

.

.

It was very relaxing and just what we needed.

.

.

.

Ahhh.... we both wish massages weren't so expensive. I guess we will just have to stick to our one time every two years plan.

DIY Back Splash & 20 lbs Gone...

This weekend the inner carpenter in us came out in full force. We tiled our hearts out. It was a lot of work, but the end result is totally worth it. We re-did our kitchen back splash. It was plain white and now it definitely has some character.

It looks expensive.... even though it wasn't ;) and it makes me want to cook!

.

.

.

Enjoy some pictures!

Nate is so handy. I bet he could build a whole house by himself.

.

.

.

We have lots of renovation memories together.

It was great for us to be home together for a whole weekend.

.

.

.

Grouting

.

.

.

Before and after shot. This turned out a little small, but when we are completely through with the counter tops and all I will post better ones.

................................................................................................................................................ And, for the weight watchers update:

I have lost 20 lbs!

I sit here (at work) wearing some black pants that I haven't been able to wear in at least 2 years. Woo Hoo! I don't know how I let myself get so big, but I am really enjoying losing the weight. Every Monday when I weigh and see that number go down it is like a little happy party going on in my mind. ha.

I can't wait to get to my goal! I'm half way there! When these next 20 lbs get gone, I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself!

DIY

One of the things that Nate and I enjoy the most is a little home renovation. We basically

re-did everything we could in our old house. Every little bit of extra money we had went into that place. We will never forget eating Ramen Noodles for a whole month so we could build a fence in the backyard, or eating cereal for a month so we could re-do our kitchen. Those were some good times.

We love that house and it will always be special to us, but we are really ready to get rid of it :) I am praying that everything works out with our current renters. I can't wait to NOT have two mortgages! They should have their financing soon... hopefully.

.

.

.

Anyway, we were very blessed and lucky to get our new house! There aren't very many things that we want to change, but we got started on a couple things this last weekend. We got some awesome tile online at a discount store for a great price and re-tiled our fireplace.

.

.

.

Some glue...

.

Some tile...

.

Some grout...

.

and, there you have it.

We loved how it turned out!

.

.

.

Now this weekend we will be using the same tile to do a back splash in our kitchen! I am really excited about that!